Dylan McCabe 0:00
limitless roofing Show Episode Number 30. Welcome to the limitless roofing show. My name is Dylan McCabe. And in every episode, we give you a seat at the table as we talk with owners and CEOs or roofing companies and industry experts so that you can get the insights you need to remove the limits on your business and your leadership. And in this episode, I’m going to be talking with Ben Hotz, and he’s the CEO of jobnimbus. And Ben himself is a serial entrepreneur. He started 10 different companies over the years and some of them have been very successful, one of them even having a $1 billion exit. Ben is also going to distill what he’s learned over the years after working with over 5000 contractors in job Nimbus is the number one contractor software. And after working with 1000s of customers, Ben is really going to distill what he’s seeing time and time again, from those companies that really do well. And they continually break through the barriers and challenges in their business. He’s going to unpack how they attack their market, their product, and their team building. You’re going to get a ton out of this. And I think you’re going to be really fired up by the end of it because Ben is a passionate guy, and he’s just very contagious. I love this interview. I got so much out of it. And before we jump into that, I’ve got to get a shout out to one of our partners, our corporate sponsor, daily and black. Listen when the insurance companies underpay delay or deny you’ve got to bring an 800 pound gorilla like Dalian black to your side, they fight to win, and they’ve got the record to back it up. They’ve actually never lost a case. They tried more cases than any of their competitors. They helped draft the Texas insurance code and they testify in the house in the Senate to make sure our laws are fair and balanced. When other law firms want to speak with experts. They call Dalian black. Listen guys, we at limos are very picky about who we partner with. And we have partnered with them, you can go to their website at daily black comm or you can give them a call at 833-574-5677. Alright guys, let’s jump into this conversation with Ben Hodson, CEO of jobnimbus. All right, Ben, thank you for joining the show man.

Ben Hodson 2:11
Glad to be here man.

Dylan McCabe 2:12
Awesome. Had to had to leap back up on camera there real quick as something was really on my laptop iPad.

Ben Hodson 2:22
Dude, I haven’t been on this show before. It’s like, Is that part of the stick here?

Dylan McCabe 2:26
No.

Ben Hodson 2:26
Hello.

Dylan McCabe 2:27
We don’t bounce around. Then I’m Uh, I’m excited to have you on the show because you you know you really are very different background from a lot of our guests. We use job Nimbus set my partner’s company rain tight general contracting. So we’re big fans of job Nimbus. But the reason I was excited to bring you on board is because you have a really unique background with companies that you’ve started companies, you’ve grown companies you’ve sold. You know what it’s like to be a small business owner, you know, what it’s like to deal with struggles of sales, operations, finance, growing a team. And you know, what it’s like to work with 1000s of general contractors and roofers. So I just thought this would be a great time to dig in and talk about some of the fundamentals. You know, what you guys have learned over the years of working with 1000s of contractors, what works, and we’re going to dive into that. So before we get into all that, I’d kind of like to give you a chance just to share your background story. You’re the you’re the CEO, and co founder job Nimbus. But let’s kind of go back and share your story and how you got here.

Ben Hodson 3:34
Yeah, okay. I think there’s a couple things that are interesting. It’s kind of weird to talk about yourself, but interesting about me in particular, I, I grew up in the Seattle area and went to the University of Washington, I got so into computers, even though I got a business degree there. I got a second degree in computer science, because I was really interested in programming, and trying to build great software, of course, Seattle at the time, Microsoft and everybody like big, big software area still is Amazon up there, anything like that. And then right out of school, it this is a whole separate story and take me 15 minutes to tell. It’s really fun. So maybe we can do that another time. But through a long series of events, I ended up entering a business plan competition at U dub. And the idea that we had for that ended up spinning out of U dub and I became I started companies. My first company is called vinify. And vinify actually just got bought in December for 1.1 5 billion. So it was a huge success. But it took years and years and years a lot of pain and suffering to get that company where it was which is always the case. It’s never easy, right? I mean, through a lot of other companies and actually job Nimbus is my 10th one zero company I’ve ever started, and I started with two partners Nick and Jason. We were trying to solve the problem of like, how do we bring great contracting software or great software to contracting? Because when we came into this market, the software absolutely sucked. It was terrible. And we said that we can do it better. We’re software guys. We may not be contractors, but we’re really good at software, we can solve this problem, we can make it completely new way of doing things. So we started back in 2012. And actually through I just met a couple of roofers. Actually, that’s how I got started. And I heard about their problems and saw what they were using and said, No, this is terrible, we can do better. We had a new version out, I don’t know, in six months, we built something that was kind of doing some cool stuff, and they were using it. And within a year, people were going, Hey, we’ll pay for this. This is awesome. And so we launched the company and and started growing like massively. That 2014 is really when we started taking off.

Dylan McCabe 5:55
Male, that’s awesome. A

Ben Hodson 5:56
lot of things happened along there. But that’s probably the quick version of it.

Dylan McCabe 6:00
Yep. And so and since then, I know you guys, have you made a lot of changes over the years. I mean, we’re going into that was around 2013 or so this, this has been recorded in 2021. I’m sure after working with you know, I’m sure you guys had milestones like hey, we’re up to 100 customers, oh, we’re up to 1000 customers

Ben Hodson 6:20
actually had a dinner. And this is such a fun thing. We actually had a dinner, the night that we hit 100 customers, that was such a big deal. I mean, we’re so much bigger than that now. But at the time, that was incredible. Hit that milestone. So yeah, we didn’t have enough money for the company to pay for the meals that we paid out of pocket. So goes right.

Dylan McCabe 6:46
See, I just think that’s great, though, because owning a general contracting a roofing company, you are growing a small business. And I like what you said, it’s never easy. It’s not like you decide, you know what, I’m gonna break off on my own, I’ve got an idea. I’m passionate about it, I’m going to do this thing. It’s not like life just rolls the red carpet out for you. And I think some guys look from afar, and they see the guy down the street with 15 sales guys, and, you know, a $70,000 truck that’s lifted with big tires. And I think, man, why is it so easy for that guy, but it’s it’s never easy. So what I’d like to is, is kind of discuss what you and I talked about where after working with 1000s of customers, like you guys have, I’m sure you’ve seen the same things over and over and over again, that that have kept companies from growing and sustaining that success. And I’m sure you’ve also seen the same things over and over again, that have really enabled companies to grow and sustain that success. So we kind of wanted to like distill it down to the fundamentals. And, and I know you, you could speak to that. So let’s let’s get into that. What would you say are the fundamentals of growing a successful business?

Ben Hodson 7:55
Okay, I’ll get back to that. I want to just mention one other thing first. I am an entrepreneur, right. And so are you. And I think these are the heroes of our society, the people that are creating businesses are doing, I think some of the most good in the world right now. You’re creating great jobs, you’re, I love contracting, because you’re doing things that help people, there are so many ways in this world to make money. I want to make money doing something good, that actually makes the world a better place. And contractors do that. I love entrepreneurs, I feel a kinship with them. And I really truly believe it’s sort of like almost a charity in some ways. Being an entrepreneur is giving back, it is one of the best things you can do. So I love our customers, I think they’re heroes. I think anybody in contracting is a hero. I love entrepreneurs. And these are like the real people that make the country work so that I have a real kinship with that. And so I think a lot about how do you run a business the right way? Like, what should you be doing? And if you want to just distill down business to three things, I think it’s your market. It’s your team, and it’s your product. And if you have those things, right, you can win in any market against any competitor. If you have any one of those things off, you’re going to be maybe okay, but you’ll never be the true success you want to be. And if you have to have those things wrong, you’re going out of business soon.

Dylan McCabe 9:25
No, that’s really good. And I think you bring you bring kind of a unique, you know, backup number one, I really appreciate you calling out like the noble calling of the entrepreneur. Because after we I mean we had like a minute left on our call the other day, you’re like, Hey, I just want to say this real quick. I was fired up after I got off our call. And that’s rare. Yeah. And it’s rare that I get off the call with somebody and I’m like, Man, that was awesome. And I’m not. I’m not telling you that to like pump you up or blow smoke. I mean, I was I was genuinely enthusiastic after that call and I went home and talked to my My wife about it. And I was like, you know, what, what we’re doing as entrepreneurs, I mean, we really are enabling families to make better lives, we’re enabling, you know, like, we’re doing all these things that genuinely make an impact on society. So I’m glad you took a minute to call that out, because I can get a little laser focused on our talking points or whatever. But

Ben Hodson 10:21
I think it colors the whole thing. Why even do it in the first place? Right, like, there’s a real lesson it really matters, you know?

Dylan McCabe 10:27
Yeah, totally. So then digging into once you once you get that idea, whether it’s you starts out with the vision of you providing for your family, changing the trajectory of your financial history, whatever it might be, you start off, and you’re basically saying, well, you got to make sure that you hit the target in these three areas, market team and product. So what do you mean by market? that’s a that’s a broad term, that can mean a lot of different things.

Ben Hodson 10:52
This is actually the hardest of the three to understand for people, especially in contracting because they don’t think this way. But in software, if you go and try to raise venture capital, the first thing they ask you is, what’s your Tam ta M. And that’s total addressable market, they want to hear a big number there, because that tells them how much headroom you have to go before you hit the wall. And you can’t really grow anymore. And so like if, for us, it’s like we’ve we’re targeting, let’s say Roofing Contractors would say, Well, what is our total addressable market? How many we got every single contractor that was referred in America to us? jobnimbus? What would be the total amount of revenue? Can I drop for a second? I mean, back now.

Dylan McCabe 11:47
That’s okay. Yeah, I heard you at the total addressable market.

Ben Hodson 11:51
Okay. So if you’re looking at that, so for a contractor, you’re looking at it more from the standpoint of saying, Okay, if I’m working in the greater, let’s just take Seattle or something Seattle area, how many roofs actually need to get redone every year? I’m a roofer. And what’s the average amount of money that we make per roof average contract value that we get, that’s the ACV. And you add all that up. And that will tell you over time, let’s say over the next 10 years, what your total addressable market is, you can get more complicated with it, I just want to keep it really simple. But if you’re in a market that doesn’t can’t go very far. In other words, you add up the numbers and you go, gosh, even if we get every single roof in this in this town, we’re going to be at 1.2 million. And my goal is to get to 20 million in two years, ain’t gonna work. So you’ve got to figure out, you’ve either got to expand your market, you got to move to a new market, or you’ve got to think of a way to sell more or do more things. So you see, a lot of guys will Well, let’s get into siding and gutters and windows and doors and decking. So I can expand the amount of ACV, I have average contract value, which then make my Tam bigger. Because I really want to be a $20 million roofer within five years or something like that. So you got to do the math backwards to say, is it even worth doing this? Or am I even going to hit my goal? There’s a lot of other things to market, but it’s got to start with Tam.

Dylan McCabe 13:16
Both so good.

Ben Hodson 13:18
Sorry. Okay. You have any questions on that? I’ll go further than that.

Dylan McCabe 13:22
Oh, it sounds No, no, this is really good. So it sounds like if like, let’s say you’re in a small market, I’m thinking let’s address the elephant in the room, which is, I think there may be some guys listening to this that are maybe in a smaller market, but they’ve been in business for 10 years. It’s like, what am I going to do approved move to a different city? No, but I think you you address that you can either expand into other markets, or you expand your offering. So I feel like if you’re in a really big market, like we’re in Dallas, Texas, yeah, we can get super niche and only offer one thing, right? And get really familiar and be really good at it. But if I’m in a if I’m in a much smaller market, I can’t be so narrow. I’ve got to offer more, I’ve got to broaden my offering, like you mentioned, whether it’s gutters, solar, etc.

Ben Hodson 14:06
That’s right. And you can go really big over time, you might get into, you know, commercial, and you might get into general construction, and you might do new construction. You can keep expanding for whatever your goal is. So that this one of those things that it makes you think first well then wait a minute, what is my goal, and if your goal was to get into this company and just make a lot of money, it’s probably not going to go all the it’s not going to be the longevity you want. You’ve got to have something more than that. Right? And making a lot of money is not a goal. A goal is we want to be the best contractor in this area. And we’re going to define that by being worth the Tanis 50 million, we’re going to get 20 million of that over the next two years. And here’s how we’re going to do and you work backwards into that. That’s a goal. Do you know when you hit it or not? So you’ve got to actually be a gold miner. Did it and mission driven as a company is super important in terms of how you attack your market.

Dylan McCabe 15:05
Okay, so let’s let’s address that for a minute. Just because I think most people listening this, obviously you need to be successful. Yep, to keep your company afloat to pay your employees to provide for their families to provide for yourself, you want to make money, we all want to make good money, we all want to build wealth for the options that that provides for our families, even for those of us that are generous and want to give, you know, I talked to one contractor last week, and they have a given goal, not a revenue goal. So but they’re giving the giving goal and forms their revenue target. So since they want to give, you know whether it’s 500,000 away that year, that means they need to make so many million and top line revenue, which I thought was really cool. Yeah, but but for guys that you said that’s not enough. Now, some people think, Well, yeah, that’s easy for the CEO of jobnimbus, to say, but you know, as well as I do, that, when you make as much money as you thought you wanted to make, and you think it’s going to be this moment of euphoria in your life is going to change, not a lot changes. And some of the wealthiest guys I know, in Dallas, I was a fundraiser for years for a large nonprofit, and I got to know some of the wealthiest people in Dallas. And there’s a lot of wealthier. And, and a lot of these people that I got to know really, really well admitted that Yeah, well, you know, we’re going to give you guys $100,000. And in addition to that, just so you know, that’s what we’re excited about is what that 100,000 can do, whether it’s building orphanages or whatever, it’s not about having 30,000 foot square home, because that’s really exciting for about the first year. And then after a while, it kind of sucks to pay the taxes on it, to deal with security issues, to be to get called on constantly by fundraisers, whatever it might be. And my personal mentor is a wealthy individual. And I, I’ve heard him say that it’s you know, it’s just not what you if the money is all it’s about, it’s gonna fall flat, that is not going to fuel your fire long term.

Ben Hodson 17:12
Let me tell you why. So I totally agree with this, you’ve got the situation that to get this business to where you want it to go, you’re going to have to put in your heart and your soul. And it’s going to take massive hours. And it’s going to take massive stress, right? Like entrepreneurs go through some of the highest amount of stress, because they’re laying it all on the line high risk people, right? So to do that, if you were doing that just for the dollar, you will run out of steam, I have done this, I have made the mistake of chasing the money. And it it’s hollow. There’s nothing there. Right. So then I started saying, Well, wait a minute, what, what am I really doing this for, and I found out what I really care about is about helping build businesses in America, helping build up employees, creating a wealth for my employees, like getting the company to a place where as many people participate, doing good in the community, these are the things that give meaning to life. And also solving really hard problems is very meaningful for us. Like, we’re constantly trying to push ourselves to solve the hardest problems, and do hard things that a lot of the people wouldn’t even consider doing here. That gives meaning and spice to life. And it’s not hollow. But you have to say, Well, wait, I got to make money, though. Otherwise, this is pointless. And I would say here’s how I put that together. I can’t think of a better way to know if you’re hitting your mission than by revenue. And you might think that’s crazy. You might say, Well wait, you’re back to just saying it’s money. No, no, to get the revenue goals you want. You’ve got to wow customers, you’ve got to be the best in your market. You’ve got to give customers everything they hope that they’re getting from you. And you’ve got to be worth every dollar that you’re charging. So the only way to hit your revenue goals is to basically do your company mission. It’s a great metric to follow. But what you do with your employees and what you do with yourself, as you say, I don’t care about the money. I care about the impact that that so that when I look at revenue number, look, the money will just come if you do this, right. Look at the revenue number as impact. Am I achieving my company mission? It’s revenue that tells you if you’re doing that or not.

Dylan McCabe 19:27
That’s so good. Yeah, that’s a great breakdown. It’s true because we I’m thinking about yesterday, we just rain tie general contracting put a roof on a house for a guy. And he just had no concept of how the insurance process worked. Long story short, we sent in a supplement his claim almost tripled because of internal damage to the home because at the end of the whole process, he was so astounded that the insurance company wasn’t there to help him and you know, he’s built this out. For I think 3030 years. Yeah, so he was so astounded in that short amount of time since about a couple of weeks ago to yesterday, he’s already referred us to five people all in Highland Park, which is an affluent neighborhood in Dallas. So I was up on another roof yesterday. And then another one later this week. So I think that’s, that’s the deal is, is, that’s our goal is met impact, right? Like, we want to help this guy. And so it turns into more money. Yeah, it’s so good. But I haven’t heard anybody really kind of break it down like that, as he’s so. So getting into the market. What’s one kind of what’s the best advice you would give to some guys that feel like they maybe hit the ceiling? in their market? They’re in a, they’re in a decent market? But like, what, if you had 60 seconds to say, okay, like, just, here’s, here’s the best advice I can give you that will move the needle this year.

Ben Hodson 21:00
Yeah. Two things that I’ve put their brand and targeting and brand, I mean, thinking about who you are, what you offer, and how you stand out. And you know, every guy next door can put on a roof, maybe similar, whatever, what’s going to make you the X Factor. And it really probably comes down to your quality, your reputation, how professional you come off, your guy shows up, but he’s not in logo branded gear, and he doesn’t have a truck that’s wrapped like I’m not buying from him, you know. So come across professional, you make sure you’ve got a logo that doesn’t look like it was made in 1991, right, you’ve got a website, I can’t tell you how many customers I see that I go and they have a GoDaddy landing page, they don’t even have a website. And they’re using a gmail email address, it does sound like fly by night doesn’t sound like this is the company I want to work with long term. And that will drive value build to charge more, because you’re giving more they’re your there’s more trust there too. And you’re going to get more value. So that’s the brand side of thing. And then the target thing is to say, who do we work with who gives us the best reviews who just absolutely loves us. And it might be income range, it might be demographics, it might be geo located area, who gives us the most referrals, that’s your target, figuring out who those people are. And market to those people would get really focused, like even saying no to jobs that aren’t those people so that you can own that brand and own that target market. It sounds simple. But that’s actually how every single business that succeeded that I’ve done, has worked it.

Dylan McCabe 22:42
That’s good. Yeah, you got to really clarify who your ideal customer is. And then revisit that, because it’s one of those things where I think it’s easy for, you know, the guy, a lot of people that listen to this own roofing and GC companies, that’s who we cater to. So I think a lot of guys and gals Listen, this may think, Well, I know my, our target audience, but a lot of your people may not. And we can get into something a little different there. Because communicating that and the communication chain that takes place. It’s so easy. When you’re the leader, you’re pulling from so much data, or when you make a decision, or when you communicate something, and the people that work for you, especially new hires are pulling on so much less data. So your decisions, the things that are simple to you are the concepts that are simple to you. They’re there they are new to them, or more complex to them. And so this whole idea of market, it really needs to be revisited on even a quarterly basis. To make sure Yep,

Ben Hodson 23:38
that a lot of people take it for granted. Oh, well, we’ll just sell in our city, you know, they don’t think about targeting, they don’t think about how they’re go, who they’re going after they don’t think about who they’re working with. It’s working well. And if you say I’ve heard this a lot of times, like, I really want to get into commercial. That is not a plan. That’s like a that’s like a thought, you know, the plan would be well, do we know how to actually run a commercial job? Do we know how to sell the commercial? It’s a totally different thing that residential? Do we know? How to get into the network to even get to those things? Do we know which types of commercial buildings work better for us? Can we even put on this type of roof or whatever, right? So you start really breaking it down. You could whiteboard this out, it doesn’t take a lot of time and a few hours with your team, you’re probably going to have some circles that say, Ah, that’s our target. And then you start expanding as you get good at one target. Now you start expanding out and that helps you get to your goal. But if you’re not focused if you say Well no, we work with everybody. We can do any roof. It will not work long term. You’ll never hit the growth rates of the other guys are hitting.

Dylan McCabe 24:42
That’s good stuff. Now that’s really good. So let’s let’s go then I think there’s some there’s some real golden nuggets there on market. For those listening. I think the next thing is is team. What do you mean by team?

Ben Hodson 24:54
Yeah. This is one of the actually hardest ones. For people. It’s easy to understand. It’s hard to implement. I mean, there’s a whole struggle struggle across the US right now and trying to get talent for actually laborers. And also, I’ve seen a massive vacuum in this industry of leadership. There’s not that many people that know how to people wrangle and actually be a successful like, leadership, executive, whatever you want to call it, at these companies. So how do you find these people how you set it up? You know, there’s a whole aspect of this of hiring, Are you hiring? I’ve met several people who said, like, the way we hired this guy was that can I have a beer with them? Yeah, let’s get him. No, that’s not effective. That’s not gonna work? Do you have a training plan after they are hired? Let’s say you get the right person, then are you training them? Right? And then there’s a whole thing of like, how do you build out a management team? Now, all of this before we even get to all those tactical things, has to start with your company values. And I know that this is sort of a bad word for some people, because they’ve been in companies that didn’t follow the values and they thought, they’re total BS, I get that completely, I’ve been in the same place, places I’ve worked. I’m like, this is total crap. They give me a list of values, they don’t follow any of the stuff and talk about it, I can’t remember any of them, there’s too many of them. And then I’ve heard the other side of the coin, where they get so obsessive over it, that they don’t think about the why they’re even have those values. So you’ve got to split the middle on this, but you can’t ignore it. I am actually, I got to be completely honest, my first few companies, I said, values, get that crap out of my face, man, it’s all about execution, you know. And now I’m 100%. The other way, too, you start with the values, everything you do is based on the values. That’s how you build the long term longevity of the company. And that’s how you find the right team members. And people want to come work at a place that gives them meaning that matters, that you’re doing something that has impact. And it starts with values, like I want to work for a mission driven, value driven company every day.

Dylan McCabe 27:05
That’s good, you know, because I’m sure you have an I have to I’ve worked for employers where there wasn’t an emphasis on any values. And so there’s no real heart behind what’s being done other than let’s crush it, right? Yeah. And so

Ben Hodson 27:22
that’s our number one bet.

Dylan McCabe 27:24
Yeah. And if there’s no, if there’s no other value, other than the grind, the grind the grind, you know, after a while, it’s like, Well, okay, I’m gonna make good money, if I hit my target this quarter, whatever it might be, but, but when you combine that with a great mission, you know, there’s a great book called vision hearing by Andy Stanley. And you’re actually unpacks, the book of Nehemiah from the Bible. But he in the introduction to the book, he says vision and mission is critical. And here’s why. And he says, It’s the difference between people just blindly packing bags of sand on the beach, because it’s their duty. And that’s what they were told to do. Versus people building a dike to save a city. One has a mission behind it, and values behind it. And the other is just, the task is the same and the outcome is the same. When people know the reason why that there’s something bigger than me, there’s something more important than me, there’s something worth getting up early, getting a little stressed out, sometimes working a little late sometimes for and it’s not just me collecting a check. So I think it’s great that you’re calling that out that the values of the key and you know, in our in our roofing CEO groups, it’s part of the EOS process we go through, and it’s what the question is, what are your core values, and we recommend three to seven and seven is the max, we have, like you said, if you’ve got if you’ve got 10 of them, people can’t remember all that you really can’t promote it. It’s difficult to use in your training or onboarding. You’re rewarding. Yeah. So So you guys have five? So I’m just curious, what are the five core values of job Nimbus,

Ben Hodson 28:59
okay, and this goes back to our mission.

Dylan McCabe 29:02
I’m putting you on the spot,

Ben Hodson 29:03
all of you that don’t worry about that, I got it. Like I said, this is sort of like something I’m obsessed with. It goes back to our mission. Our mission is to make contractors heroes, and internally, we’re trying to make our employees heroes I like every day, I’m like, you’re here, and you’re kind of like starting with us. Maybe you’re Luke Skywalker on the farm. By the time you get done, you’re gonna be a Jedi dude. And we are going to get you to the next path in your career. That’s why you want to work here because we care and we actually going to get you there. for our customers. It’s like, Look, you’re running Luke Skywalker, you’re running little moisture. evaporators by the time you get done, you’re gonna be the Jedi Master in this contracting industry. And every single homeowner is gonna say, that was the best contractor I ever worked in my entire life. Right? That’s our mission. So if you look at that, and say, Well, what would a hero look like? We name five things that we think really define a hero in our society today. So number one, self driven, and that’s really where it starts here. You’ve got to be proactive. Job Nimbus, you’ve got to be self driven. If you are waiting around for things to happen, you will not like it here you want to be on it before, it’s even a problem you’ve already thought ahead of, you’re going to try to solve it. Number two, because sometimes self driven sounds a little bit like selfish. We have number two is team committed. It’s not all on you, it’s the team that wins, and you’re helpful to your team, you’re reliable, but nobody wants a team member that’s not self driven. So it’s got to start there, right? Number three is proactive learning, you have to be learning all the time, the companies that learn the fastest win the fastest. And that’s true across any industry. If you’re leveling up your competition, because you’re learning more, and you’ve got a feedback loop, and you’re figuring out things faster, you’re going to wreck it, you’re going to destroy everybody else out there. Number four is deliver customer value. I don’t want you just to get stuff done. We don’t do that here, we get stuff done for customers, and not just anything we get value done for customers. And if you haven’t gone here a day, without delivering customer value, you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, because that’s all that matters in the end. And then the final one, it’s kind of fun. It’s life balance. And we think of this kind of like, well, superhero has two sides, like there’s Clark Kent, and they’re Superman. And yeah, sure, when you’re at the company, you’re Superman, and we’re making you Superman, you got to save the day all the time. But when you’re at home, you’re Clark King, and you got to have a life. And there’s both sides, your reporter and you’ve got Lois Lane is your girlfriend, and you’ve got to make that work. And as much as I absolutely love what we’re doing and think it’s so important, I would never want it to come in the way of my family or my friends or my relationships. So I’ve got to make sure I balance that with what I’m doing here at Thomas.

Dylan McCabe 31:48
That’s so good. So I think that’s a good challenge. anybody watching or listening to this? You know, what are the core values of your company? Are they something that you as the leader, the key executive or the owner are passionate about? Is it something that you guys use? in training? Is it something you use in rewarding? The do you rate your employees not just on their financial performance, but on how well they embody your core values? I think there’s a lot to think about here, because that’s what you guys have seen keeps a cohesive team. And so as you get into that, you know, I got to ask a lot of guys say, Yeah, well, I’d love to have some great teammates that fit our culture, etc. But a lot of guys really struggle with finding great talent, finding great people. So what’s one piece of advice you have for that hiring process?

Ben Hodson 32:36
Yeah, so we actually designed a series of questions that the first stage for us is, Oh, I got a plug of book here. Have you read Who? Who by Jeff smart? Oh, gosh, dude, this is the best book I’ve ever read on hiring in my life. I read it a few years back, and and I find new hiring. And then I read that book and said, Oh, I need to level up even more. So we actually use the HU methodology across the whole company right now. And it starts with a 30 minute screening interview, where you screen for values and culture First, look skills fine. If you’re self driven, if you’re proactive learner, you’re going to learn it anyways, I’m looking for culture and values match first, because then I know I can do anything with you together, we’re on the same team united in the same goal. But we actually have like certain questions that flesh things out. For instance, like, with a self driven person, we’re going to ask questions like, on your last team, how did you rank? Oh, I don’t know. They didn’t really rank me. Really? You don’t have any idea? Were you the best the worst? I mean, well, I guess, what would your boss say? Well, I guess they tell me they’re number two. What was your boss’s name? Oh, Bob Samson. Is that how do you spell that you tell, ask them how to spell even if it’s Smith, because you want them to think, oh, crap, they’re going to ask that guy. So I better be honest about it. Right? And then you say, Well, why would you Why did he give you that rating? Why would he say you’re number two. And so if I talked to Bob, he confirm this, you know, you say these types of things. And it gets that person very, very open and honest. Well, honestly, he has maybe a three and it’s because of this and we had this running, and you’ll flush out things. You’re like, okay, I don’t want to work with that person. Or you’ll say, Oh, I’m loving this. This is totally our guy, right? Or our girl. So as we go along, we have little questions that like dial in, okay, that’s self driven. That’s team committed. They don’t even know it. We’re just asking rather regular interview questions, but we actually have a scorecard. And it has a one to 20 for each of those things. And we score them at the end. And we usually have two people, at least on the interview. And if they don’t score an 85 or higher on the culture and values, they don’t move forward. They’re like we don’t even want top tier value people. But if they move forward to that, now we move into a skill interview next, and then there’s usually a third follow up skill interview. That kind of deep dives and talks a lot about what do you want to do with your career? Where are you trying to go? Because we got to make sure that after you know, there’s a value match and a skill match. The third thing you got to get is a seat match. And what I mean by that is, does that person want to do the job that you’re going to hire them for? Are they actually good at what that job is? And is it something that company needs right now? And you can use that for anybody that somebody is not working out in your organization? First question is, do they have our values? They do, then the second thing is, can they do the skills that they’re doing right now? Well, that’s a seed question. And that’s when you start saying, Look, I’ll find a seat for somebody has our values because I want to keep those people. But if they don’t have our values, like gone, like I’m sorry that you’re not, you won’t like it here. This isn’t you. It’s like, we want people that are us, right? If they do ever values, then we ask the C question, we figure out the right seat that uses their God given talents.

Dylan McCabe 35:55
That is so good. You know, we one of the things we call it is right people right seats. I love how you guys, your interview process addresses. Okay, are you the right person? Check. Now, what’s the right seat to put you in check? And that’s so good, because I think a lot of people hire based on one of those. It’s like, hey, you’re the right person, we’ll find a place for you. Okay, you’re gonna be our bookkeeper. No experience in bookkeeping. Bad idea. Bad idea. Yeah, but we go to church together, and they watch our kids and so and so’s a cousin. So it’s just like, please stop, just save everybody time in the pain. Or they hire somebody most often. That’s their right fit for the seat, but they’re not the right person. So you’ve got some very capable sales guy can crush it. He’s just a monster out there. closing deals like nobody’s business. alienates everybody else in the company. Yeah, that’s right. Because he doesn’t line up with the core values, lacks humility, or whatever it might be. And so you got the right, you got the wrong person in the right seat. And you know, you hear about this a lot. And then the business owner has to deal with Well, what the heck do I do now? I mean, this guy is making me 500 grand a year, a million a year, what am I supposed to do? cut him loose.

Ben Hodson 37:13
One of the hardest things I’ve had to make this call to, like, Hey, this is my top performer. But I clearly this person is wrecking our culture, and his team hates him, I’m gonna have to lay this guy off. And it’s gonna hurt everybody in the whole company, because he’s bringing in the revenue right now. And every time I held off on that, and this is, when I’m in a group by like, sometimes I how many people waited too long to fire somebody and everybody’s hand goes up in the entire room, right? And how many people fired somebody too early? Almost never do you see a head go up? Maybe what you know, because you always want to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. But if it’s an article of values match and culture match, every time that I made the move, it was better than actually everybody got better faster, you know, if I kept it the way it was, everybody was down here. There was one top performer and the culture was terrible. So I my personal experiences, it always works to get rid of people that aren’t your values and go all in on people that have your values in the right seats.

Dylan McCabe 38:16
That’s good. So I think my challenge to those watching and listening to this would, would be on a scale of one to five based on how been broke down market. Where are you at? I mean, one being the least, you know, the least amount of strength and five being the strongest, as far as how well are you dialed into your market on a scale of one to five, and then team even more importantly, because a great team can go to great things even in a small market, but a crappy team cannot. So on a scale of one to five, how based on what Ben just unpacked? How strong is your team? You know, that’s something to think about? Are you guys united around great core values? Do you have the right people in the right seats? Are you are you building a positive culture is built on something better than let’s just hit these revenue targets? So this is great stuff. So let’s now we’re rounding the corner into the third fundamental that you and I discussed. And you said that’s product. And I’m really I’m really looking forward to this because a lot of people listen this thing of Oh, yeah, our product is a roof.

Ben Hodson 39:16
Yep. Yep. And and some ways that’s true. at the most basic level, but everybody’s got that same product. So your real product is your quality, your efficiency, your culture, they’re buying your values, they’re buying, that’s what we started with this stuff, because they’re buying that, you know, I want to work with somebody. There’s two things I was thinking about, like I talked to the sales team a lot and say, I want to buy for somebody who I like, that’s pretty obvious. I think a lot of people know that what people don’t think of as much about I want to buy some from somebody who likes me. And that makes me think of relationship and connection. Like do they care about me? Do they want need to be successful? Like, I love I was talking to a guy the other day one of our customers and he said, I make everybody asked this question before they call me. If it was my home, what would I do? And half the time, they don’t call me anymore? Because they say, yeah, should we take this offer? Yeah, do it, should we fix this or not do it. Because if it was your home, you would do it and you’d want that contractor to do it. And that shows through that homeowner is going to give an amazing review is going to be much more likely to work with you in the future and recommend you than somebody that you just took the money and run on.

Unknown Speaker 40:37
So that’s great

Ben Hodson 40:38
products, quality, efficiency, that sort of thing. I’m sorry, go ahead. And if I have another thing I want to share with you about that, too. But

Dylan McCabe 40:46
no, let’s just keep going on product. I mean, what what differentiates you if you own a roofing company, you got four or five sales guys. And you’re putting on a ga f rW for Owens Corning roof or whatever it might be. And so as your competitor, how do we how do you differentiate your product?

Ben Hodson 41:02
Yeah, so professionalism is the next thing. I want to work for somebody that looks like they’re legit company, not a bunch of guys who just got rolled out of bed and showed up at your house, you know, terrifying. Like, I want them in company logo, I want them. And this is one that I don’t think a lot of people think about I think everybody a lot of people are in repair, remodel, right? And so you’re thinking about it being like a doctor, somebody’s got a problem with their body, right? Like I got cancer or whatever. Are you going to hire a doctor who has no certifications or training and put him on in charge of saving your life? Are you gonna hire the best person in the industry that has every single certification that has the right insurance in place that has been training and building on this that has years of experience, or at least has a background that shows you that they’re professional and know what they’re doing? And then actually can talk intelligently at a detail that same thing? I noticed a lot of times people’s estimates say one line, price 12,438. Like, well, what does that mean? Now I want you to tell me, what are you going to do? We’re going to come in, we’re going to tear off the roof. And we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this, oh, like walk me through what it’s like to work with you guys. What does it feel like and and you can let your culture and values come through that. And then we’re going to check in with you. And by the way, we’re going to text you about this, we’re gonna send an email, by the way job. Nimbus does a lot of this stuff for you. But you could do it on your own too. Right. And now you’re painting the picture. You’re visioning out for that homeowner, what it’s like, and you’re selling more than just the gf roof, you’re selling the experience.

Dylan McCabe 42:41
That’s great. So you that’s I mean, you just said a mouthful right there, you’re selling the experience. And when that’s something we’ve found to with, you know, my my role is primarily limitless. You know, I’m super passionate about our roofing CEO groups, but I got into this industry selling roofs for my my buddy who owns rain tight. And so I’ll still you know, if we have a friend or family member that says, hey, can come look are absolutely I mean, I’m not going to pass up the chance for that experience or for that revenue. And so we’ll we’ll do that. But that’s, that’s the deal is the experience. And what I’ve found, is coming into this industry from the outside like I did, there is a there is a massive lack of professionalism, I’m just calling it like it is I’m not trying to be critical. There’s just a massive lack of professionalism that you get really more than more, you know, I was in healthcare, doing consulting and software and stuff like that. And the problem was Stone

Ben Hodson 43:40
Age over there half the time, right?

Dylan McCabe 43:42
Yeah, with the doctors it is. But if there’s but if there’s a hospital administrator, or a Chief Technology Officer, it’s different. You know, they expect a lot. That’s right. They expect a lot. And so when I got into roofing with my buddy Miller, I was like, well, what’s your communication process? Like? What’s this process like, well, what’s that look like? And, and, you know, we’re doing these roofing jobs and stuff like that. And then we got into limitless and you started working with those roofing companies. And I just, I just saw a big lack of communication, a lack of professionalism. Like you said, even the email thing using a personal email, a lack of communicating a process, but the thing is, is there’s guys out there that are doing it really, really well. And we look at them and go, Wow, like I just saw, you know, on the American contractor show, Cornerstone construction sold. I think they were up to seven or eight locations at the time. But they’ve done that really well. They’ve got a process. They’ve got a great onboarding strategy. They got a great training strategy. They have a sales target for every location. They have a process. We did a we did an interview with their chief Operations Officer, and they call it the race to 15 they hire 15 sales guys as fast as they can. They try to make them all at least $1 million year producers. They have this very professional take on the roofing business. And, and so so just going back to what you said about that experience, I think that’s one thing they nailed was that experience. So. So what would you say if if you, you know, as you’ve looked in on 1000s, of owners of roofing companies and your companies work with 1000s, of owners of roofing companies and teams and salespeople, what would you say is the biggest thing you tend to see missing? For the big problem, you see, that needs to be addressed.

Ben Hodson 45:34
So this is this story over and over again, that I run into, everybody gets going with their company. And they usually have several months or years of success and growth. And then somewhere between the seven or $50,000, and $4 million range, they hit a flatline, and a lot of them start going backwards, like, we only did 3.5 to the fourth this year. Yeah. And it’s because you can do a lot of things wrong. I always say revenue covers a multitude of sins, it makes you look like you’re better than you are until it doesn’t, you know, until it dries up. But you can do a lot of things and get to a million dollars as a contractor or $2 million, a contractor, then the wheels come off. And the reason for that is it’s a scale problem, a 154, people can get you to a million, and you can make it work by everybody working 80 hours a week and be on their phones from 6am till 10pm, including weekends, and putting out fires, and you get there. It’s a terrible quality of life. And that’s another thing we need to talk about this industry. Like, it’s time to get back to life balance, I think, you know, but that starts with having processes in place. And so you know, we talk a lot about this because we say, like job Nimbus, it’s not some magic thing. It’s I think it’s great software, but it puts you It makes you forces you to think about your business processes, and actually put processes in place for everything. And suddenly, it’s like rocket fuel. Because of that, you can put those processes in place without job Nimbus. But that’s the other thing I see a lot of people say, Well, we will just do whatever and try to make it work. And then not realizing that you’re standing out there in front of a homer to the professionalism comment, and you’re writing on a piece of paper to make a estimate. And that homeowner is getting another estimate later from a guy who’s got his tablet open is doing all digital and sends you a nice proposal, who you’re going to buy from, give me a break, you know, you’re gonna go with a guy that looks like he’s technologically advanced, the company is gonna have a better experience, you just the homeowner is going to know it right. So you need to get some software tools in place. That’s one way you can get your processes. But really, you need to think about your workflow first and just think about your process and start working on it.

Dylan McCabe 47:54
That’s good. So I think that I think that the key takeaway from that is, what’s the best way you could do what you do, even though you’re offering something that other companies offer? What’s the best way you can give the best experience to the customer? And that’s why I asked you, what’s your best advice for market? What’s your best advice on team I mean, we want to meet with you and get gets get some of the best advice after working with 1000s of companies in this space. And I think you guys, you know, watching and listening have gotten some great nuggets of gold here. So So after all this been I mean, what would be your parting piece of advice really unpack market team and product? What would be a party piece of advice you have for anybody listening to this? And you’re allowed to say try job Nimbus.

Ben Hodson 48:47
I don’t think that that’s actually, you know, if you think about our mission, I want to do whatever’s right for the contractor. We think that we’re making a big impact there. And we think that people naturally come to us. But again, it’s like, hopefully listening to me today. If you were wondering about us, you didn’t say, Donna, what company do I want to work with? What kind of vendor would I even want? I want a company like that, that cares about their customers. That’s super mission driven, that their value is are their actual mission is to make contractors heroes, and hopefully you see yourself a little bit in that and say, I think sometimes I meet people as well. I’m not a hero. No, you got to think different. You are Dude, you are amazing. It is so hard to be an entrepreneur. I am so honored to work with people like this. I love them. I think they’re amazing. It it’s totally something you can be and you should be attaining. And what do I define as a hero? I mean, honestly, it’s like, let’s help you hate your life goal, whatever that is, you know I want to do this or that great. Your Dreams should come true. Through your business not be as I’ve heard several people come to us in the past and say I’ve been running this thing for several years, honestly, I’m almost ready to hang it up. Because it’s 24. Seven, my marriage is a disaster right now, blah, blah, blah, you listen the whole list and you go, holy crap, that’s not worth it, there is a better way, like get your life back and get everything back on track. That’s really the pitch for the owner, right of how you do this. But there’s one thing that we do a lot here. And I think it would be really valuable for everybody on this listening in to do this. And that’s to think about the customer experience, and actually whiteboard it out. What does it feel like to be the homeowner working with weathertight? You know, what’s, what’s it feel like to go through that process? How, and think about the emotions that they’re gonna have? When I meet my estimator for the first time? How do I want them to feel when I leave, and focus on that feeling, and then design your process to make that feeling happen, then the next step, and when I finished the roof, this is how I want them to feel, and work through that feeling an emotional journey of the customer. And if you do that, you will be the best contractor in your space, because nobody else is thinking that way right now.

Dylan McCabe 51:11
Man, that’s great. So for everybody watching and listening, I think that’s, you know, going through Bible college and seminary and you know, you sit through it, you’ve when you’re in class, and I feel like this has been kind of a class. When you’re in class, you just get this dailies of information. And you think, Okay, what am I supposed to walk out of here without got more questions than I had when I came in? I think there’s one great takeaway from this, schedule a time get with your team and chart out on a whiteboard, what is the customer experience, like, start with that, guys, you will be so glad you did take some time to work on your business and not just in it. And actually be proactive and chart a course chart a bold course for your leadership of where you want to be a year from now, three years from now, you’ll be so glad you did. And I think this this episode, I think is going to get a lot of replays, we’re going to get a lot of feedback on this because you’ve shared a lot of unique stuff. Or if you if you’ve shared some things that are kind of common principles, you’ve unpacked it in a different way. And I just envisioned it and asked me to do this. And you guys have not paid for any kind of sponsorship on here for this episode. But I got to tell everybody watching and listening as well. You know, we’re using job Nimbus. We are relatively new at rain tie general contracting anyway. And we have been really impressed at the level of customer service, because we had our onboarding call and then Dallas got slammed with that ice storm. Yeah, we got water mitigation work. Well, we quickly decided, you know what, we’re gonna hire a consultant. We’re going to learn water mitigation. We’re going to use teams from the outside. We’re going to do all this stuff. huge undertaking, right. And we had just started using job Nimbus. So we’re trying to we’re trying to learn a new project management software, slash CRM, we’re trying to learn a new business model. And I told the guys a job, Nimbus. I’m like, out because we had a schedule our second training call. I was like, I cannot wait. We need a training call within a couple of days. Is there anybody that can train us? It wasn’t like, Oh, we don’t typically do that. There was none of that. It was like, absolutely, somebody is going to contact you. I got an email. We got hooked up with a guy named Martin. Martin trained us. He stayed on on the line with me and I was stressed. I was like, Man, I’m sorry, Martin. Like, here’s what we need. We need a workboard for water mitigation, the whole workflow. We need this like now he is I’m like, when can we meet next we met that. I think two days later, when can we meet next we met like a day later. I mean, he just crushed it. And I was blown away because we needed it so bad. And he was so responsive. And he was always positive. So for anybody wondering, I’m just gonna, you know, I want to challenge everybody out there give jobnimbus a try. There’s a reason they’re the number one software for contractors. I think if I’m correct, you guys have about double the market share of backlinks. There’s there’s a reason for that. I our experience has been awesome. So anyway, Ben, thank you for being on the show, man. We’re gonna make this this is live now. We’ll put it up on YouTube in about a week and we really appreciate you being on here.

Ben Hodson 54:16
Thanks, man. It’s good to talk.

Dylan McCabe 54:18
All right, what a great interview with Ben hearts and man, that guy’s just great to talk to tons of insight, lots of passion. I hope you guys got a lot out of it. If you did, please take a minute just literally 60 seconds. Gosh, I said literally I’m trying to stop saying that 60 seconds and please rate and review our podcast on iTunes. If you’ve listened this far. Please take a moment to do that and helps us get the word out. And definitely check out job Nimbus. They are a great partner we have loved using them and their customer support has been phenomenal. Okay guys, this is Dylan McCabe with the limitless roofing show and I will catch you in the next episode.